The Minneapolis/St. Paul Magazine Business Journal has once again named Lifespark a 2016 Best Places to Work, rating us #14 and one of the top-scoring businesses in the Medium Company category. We’ve been ringing our purple cowbell (that’s an internal fun thing we do when we get really excited about news that sparks us at Lifespark. Who couldn’t use ‘more cowbell’ at work?). With statistics pointing towards the majority of people disengaged in the workplace (Dale Carnegie says 71% are not fully engaged), why not celebrate and create a culture that drives people to want to do their best? Doing that benefits employees, clients, partners, and our bottom-line.
Quantum Workplace, who conducted the employee engagement study on behalf of the Business Journal, shares that ‘top-performing organizations know that employee engagement drives business outcomes.’ Dale Carnegie points to the financial implications of disengaged companies who lose $11 billion each year to employee turnover. But winning these workplace awards is also about something else – it’s about validating who we are as an organization. As employees and consumers, we want to know we are part of something that’s making a difference. For Lifespark, the awards validate our work to build an exceptional workplace culture because we know that to spark lives (our company mission) we must first spark the lives of our team.
“A whole person population health model can only be successful if we treat our people with the same person-centric philosophy we do our clients, and foster their purpose and passion, create room for their identity to shine at work and build a place where they feel liberated and inspired to want to make a difference in the lives of their clients,” said Joel Theisen, RN, CEO/Founder of Lifespark. “Historically healthcare organizations often fall into the cycle of churn-and-burn of staff resulting in significant turnover. To keep people satisfied within our walls, we must make culture an essential part of our strategy first.”
How do we do that at Lifespark? It starts with hiring the right people, people who believe in our mission of sparking lives. Once they are hired, we’ve created a culture where transparency and strong communication are part of our core values. We also create opportunities for our team to experience growth in their careers, educational opportunities to enhance their areas of specialty and social gatherings to increase team bonding. “We also hold each other accountable,” added Joel. “We share everything with our employees – company financials, goals and more, to show why we do what we do and what role they have in making sure we remain profitable and relevant to our customers. Our people become invested in our mission and feel comfortable having courageous conversations with their supervisors to improve their own work experience and those around them.”
It’s why Quantum Workplace reports that highly engaged cultures are 6x more likely to say employees have a lot of responsibility for increasing engagement in their organization. We as employees have the choice to enhance the culture that is built at work and reap the benefits of having an engaged culture.
Whether it’s Top Workplace or Best Places to Work, we are excited to win these workplace awards and highlight what we believe: our people are the best in the industry and because of that, our clients receive the best care. Hear that? We’re ringing the cowbell again.
Join the conversation, we want to know, how important is employee engagement to you or your company?
